Tuesday, July 26, 2011

As I showed in my book Questioning the War on Terror: As a US citizen, your chances of being killed by a terrorist - any terrorist - are far lower than your chances of being struck by lightning. Yet the Zionist-dominated media keep whipping up fear of the statistically insignificant "terrorist threat" - and use that fear to stoke Islamophobia. In reality, however, Jewish-extremist terrorism is a bigger threat to Americans than Islamic-extremist terrorism...and Latinos and left-wingers are a vastly bigger threat than Jews and Muslims put together! If anyone you know is gullible enough to believe the "Muslim terrorist threat" propaganda they're getting from the Zionist-dominated media, please send them this story from loonwatch.com (excerpted below).

According to this data, there were more Jewish acts of terrorism within the United States than Islamic (7% vs 6%). These radical Jews committed acts of terrorism in the name of their religion. These were not terrorists who happened to be Jews; rather, they were extremist Jews who committed acts of terrorism based on their religious passions, just like Al-Qaeda and company.

Yet notice the disparity in media coverage between the two. It would indeed be very interesting to construct a corresponding pie chart that depicted the level of media coverage of each group.

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The Islamophobes claim that Islam is intrinsically a terrorist religion. The proof? Well, just about every terrorist attack is Islamic, they retort. Unfortunately for them, that’s not quite true. More like six percent. Using their defunct logic, these right wingers ought now to conclude that nearly all acts of terrorism are committed by Latinos (or Jews). Let them dare say it…they couldn’t; it would be political and social suicide to say such a thing. Most Americans would shut down such talk as bigoted; yet, similar statements continue to be said of Islam, without any repercussions.

The Islamophobes live in a fantasy world where everyone is supposedly too “politically correct” to criticize Islam and Muslims. Yet, the reality is the exact opposite: you can get away with saying anything against the crescent. Can you imagine the reaction if I said that Latinos should be profiled because after all they are the ones who commit the most terrorism in the country?

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Why do Zionist-owned-and-operated outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post keep peddling the "Muslims are terrorists" blood libel? Could their fanatical loyalty to Israel, which can only survive by tricking the West into waging war on Zionism's enemies, have something to do with it? Congratulations to honest and independent Jewish observers like Glen Greenwald and Richard Silverstein (no relation to Larry, obviously!) who dare to speak out against the endless flood of Islamophobic mainstream media sewage. -KB

An injured woman is assisted from a damaged building in Oslo, Friday, after an explosion rocked the city.

(updated below - Update II)

For much of the day yesterday, the featured headline on The New York Times online front page strongly suggested that Muslims were responsible for the attacks on Oslo; that led to definitive statements on the BBC and elsewhere that Muslims were the culprits. The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin wrote a whole column based on the assertion that Muslims were responsible, one that, as James Fallows notes, remains at the Post with no corrections or updates. The morning statement issued by President Obama -- "It's a reminder that the entire international community holds a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring" and "we have to work cooperatively together both on intelligence and in terms of prevention of these kinds of horrible attacks" -- appeared to assume, though (to its credit) did not overtly state, that the perpetrator was an international terrorist group.

Terrorism specialists said that even if the authorities ultimately ruled out Islamic terrorism as the cause of Friday’s assaults, other kinds of groups or individuals were mimicking Al Qaeda's brutality and multiple attacks.

"If it does turn out to be someone with more political motivations, it shows these groups are learning from what they see from Al Qaeda," said Brian Fishman, a counterterrorism researcher at the New America Foundation in Washington.

Initial reports focused on the possibility of Islamic militants, in particular Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami, or Helpers of the Global Jihad, cited by some analysts as claiming responsibility for the attacks. American officials said the group was previously unknown and might not even exist.

There was ample reason for concern that terrorists might be responsible.

In other words, now that we know the alleged perpetrator is not Muslim, we know -- by definition -- that Terrorists are not responsible; conversely, when we thought Muslims were responsible, that meant -- also by definition -- that it was an act of Terrorism. As Silverstein put it:

How's that again? Are the only terrorists in the world Muslim? If so, what do we call a right-wing nationalist capable of planting major bombs and mowing down scores of people for the sake of the greater glory of his cause? If even a liberal newspaper like the Times can't call this guy a terrorist, what does that say about the mindset of the western world?

What it says is what we've seen repeatedly: that Terrorism has no objective meaning and, at least in American political discourse, has come functionally to mean: violence committed by Muslims whom the West dislikes, no matter the cause or the target. Indeed, in many (though not all) media circles, discussion of the Oslo attack quickly morphed from this is Terrorism (when it was believed Muslims did it) to no, this isn't Terrorism, just extremism (once it became likely that Muslims didn't). As Maz Hussain -- whose lengthy Twitter commentary on this event yesterday was superb and well worth reading -- put it:

One last question: if, as preliminaryevidencesuggests, it turns out that Breivik was "inspired" by the extremist hatemongering rantings of Geller, Pipes and friends, will their groups be deemed Terrorist organizations such that any involvement with them could constitute the criminal offense of material support to Terrorism? Will those extremist polemicists inspiring Terrorist violence receive the Anwar Awlaki treatment of being put on an assassination hit list without due process? Will tall, blond, Nordic-looking males now receive extra scrutiny at airports and other locales, and will those having any involvement with those right-wing, Muslim-hating groups be secretly placed on no-fly lists? Or are those oppressive, extremist, lawless measures -- like the word Terrorism -- also reserved exclusively for Muslims?

Terrorism specialists said that even if the authorities ultimately ruled out terrorism as the cause of Friday's assaults, other kinds of groups or individuals were mimicking al-Qaida's signature brutality and multiple attacks.

"If it does turn out to be someone with more political motivations, it shows these groups are learning from what they see from al-Qaida," said Brian Fishman, a counterterrorism researcher at the New America Foundation in Washington.

Thus: if it turns out that the perpetrators weren't Muslim (but rather "someone with more political motivations" -- whatever that means: it presumably rests on the inane notion that Islamic radicals are motivated by religion, not political grievances), then it means that Terrorism, by definition, would be "ruled out" (one might think that the more politically-motivated an act of violence is, the more deserving it is of the Terrorism label, but this just proves that the defining feature of the word Terrorism is Muslim violence). The final version of the NYT article inserted the word "Islamic" before "terrorism" ("even if the authorities ultimately ruled out Islamic terrorism as the cause"), but -- as demonstrated above -- still preserved the necessary inference that only Muslims can be Terrorists. Meanwhile, in the world of reality, of 294 Terrorist attacks attempted or executed on European soil in 2009 as counted by the EU, a grand total of one -- 1 out of 294 -- was perpetrated by "Islamists."

UPDATE II: This article expertly traces and sets forth exactly how the "Muslims-did-it" myth was manufactured and then disseminated yesterday to the worldwide media, which predictably repeated it with little skepticism. What makes the article so valuable is that it names names: it points to the incestuous, self-regarding network of self-proclaimed U.S. Terrorism and foreign policy "experts" -- what the article accurately describes as "almost always white men and very often with military or government backgrounds," in this instance driven by "a case of an elite fanboy wanting to be the first to pass on leaked gadget specs" -- who so often shape these media stories and are uncritically presented as experts, even though they're drowning in bias, nationalism, ignorance, and shallow credentialism.

Friday, July 22, 2011

"A report released today by the Pew Research Center reveals that a majority of Muslims in several Middle Eastern countries believe that the Sept. 11 attacks were not carried out by Arabs...No more than 28 percent of Muslim respondents in any of these countries said they accept that the attack was carried out by Arabs, something seen as an inarguable fact (!!! -ed.) in the United States and other Western nations."

Editor's note: A Scripps poll shows that 36% of Americans -- meaning more than 100 million of them -- believe that it is "likely" that US government insiders staged the 9/11 attacks as a pretext for war. Another shows that only 16% of Americans believe their government is telling the truth about 9/11. And there have probably been more arguments about this "inarguable fact" over the past ten years -- especially over the past five -- than over any other American political topic.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Naveed Butt of Hizb ut-Tahrir: "Infiltrating a loosely knit organization such as the Taliban is not difficult for any government. There is enough evidence to conclude that the US has been able infiltrate the loosely structured Taliban to cause chaos in Pakistan. This was further confirmed by [Central Intelligence Agency operative] Raymond Davis’ links with militant organizations. This is why the 'militants' instead of targeting US assets, such as offices of the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation], CIA and Blackwater [Xe Services], were targeting mosques, Islamic universities, markets and bus stations. The whole purpose was to start a civil war or fitna [strife] where Muslims would die on both sides."

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Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT), or the Liberation Party, was founded in 1953 in Jerusalem. The party advocates the politics of pan-Islam by calling for the re-establishment of the Islamic caliphate.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is active in most Muslim countries in addition to Western Europe, North America and Australia. Since the targeted assassination of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by United States special forces in Pakistan in early May (sic), the Pakistani chapter of HuT has come under increasing media and security attention because of its alleged penetration of the higher reaches of the powerful Pakistani military establishment.

To investigate this issue further, Asia Times Online conducted an exclusive interview with Hizb ut-Tahrir’s spokesman in Pakistan, Naveed Butt.

Butt grew up in Islamabad and began his degree at the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore before transferring to the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he completed a degree in electrical engineering and computer science. Since 2000, he has been the media spokesman for HuT in Pakistan.